Signal processing techniques are used in a wide variety of applications. Communications frequently use signal processing for modulation/demodulation, analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, filtering, spectrum analysis, target identification, radar processing, decoding, etc. For example, signal processing is utilized in radio frequency receivers used in military and commercial applications, such as in electronic intelligence (ELINT) receivers, cell phones, wireless local area networks, radars, sensors, etc.
Receivers often compute the spectrum of received signals. Computing the spectrum of wide band signals and very wide band signals can require significant processing power. This requirement is enhanced for systems that use very high frequency RF signals (e.g., 100+MHz and multi-GHz systems). Fundamental performance limits of conventional receiver architectures can significantly constrain the potential of these and other communication systems because of the processing requirement associated with spectrum computations.
Accordingly, there is a need for a receiver architecture for efficiently computing the spectrum of wide band and very wide band signals. Further still, there is a need for a processing pipeline which can handle the performance requirements of spectrum determination using conventional circuit level components with conventional processing power. Yet further, there is a need for a receiver optimized for high speed processing of wide band and very wide band signals. Still further, there is a need for a front end signal processing architecture that can handle high data rates.
It would be desirable to provide a system and/or method that provides one or more of these or other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the aforementioned needs.